Sex Roles and Gender Roles

The terms sex roles and gender roles often are used interchangeably to denote a repertoire of emotions, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions that are commonly associated more with one sex than with the other. Individuals are deemed to adopt a gender role self-concept, which is the amount of gender stereotypical traits and behaviors that persons use to describe themselves and to influence their dispositions. These traits reflect expectations a society holds toward men and women (see Eagly et al. 2000). The classic conceptualizations of the male gender role associates it with instrumental/agentic behaviors and traits that reflect independence, assertiveness, and dominance; the female gender role has been associated with expressive behaviors and traits that reflect sensitivity to others and communality (Bem 1974). The conceptualization also includes androgynous traits, which are mixtures of traditional male and female gender roles (Bem 1974).